Mayor says Bay would be brought closer by project

REGIONAL PLAN: Wairoa Mayor Craig Little, and project drivers Sir Graeme Avery and Sport Hawke's Bay talent development officer Marcus Agnew. PHOTO/PAUL TAYLOR.

Wairoa may be more than 130km from Hastings, a drive of close to two hours, but it's gap that could be closed by miles through the AUT Millennium Hawke's Bay.

It's not that there'll be any geographical miracles, but Wairoa Mayor Craig Little, who makes that journey often to follow his own's family's pursuits, says the plan is one of the most positive for bringing Hawke's Bay closer together, and bringing his town more into the regional fold.

He says the decline of sporting opportunity in small towns such as Wairoa, where the population of 7890 at the 2013 census, rating Wairoa sixth-to-smallest of the country's 67 local body districts, represented a 7 per cent drop from that during the nationwide headcount seven years earlier, has been demonstrable.

The combined factors of smaller population, remoteness from competition and well-equipped training bases, and lower than national average household incomes are countered to a small degree by such things as Sport New Zealand's Rural Travel Fund, but Mr Little sees a big light at the end of the tunnel.

"Because Wairoa is particularly isolated, due to our location, it is a continuing challenge to be able to further nurture our elite athletes," he said in a letter supporting the proposal and its aims of making sure programmes are accessible to those in the geographical extremities.

He says they will not be forced to leave Hawke's Bay, and their families and friends in order to achieve their goals, and believes the AUT Millennium will mean up-and-coming talent's problems with access to programmes and services will be "a thing of the past".

Wairoa held its annual district sports awards two weeks ago, and the array of recipients and finalists left him with little doubt there is an abundance of sporting talent in the area.

"We know that our district has no shortage of sporting talent, and a facility like this will further support harnessing that sporting talent, not only for the national stage but internationally," he said.

"A high performance sports centre and sporting facility like AUT Millennium Hawke's Bay will continue to support the sporting future of our community here in Wairoa, but also for the entire region of Hawke's Bay."

The benefits are also recognised in Central Hawke's Bay, where the district population declined by 1.8 per cent between censuses, the 12,717 including 4005 in Waipukurau, and 1965 in Waipawa.

Both are, however, within 30 minutes' drive of the Hastings Regional Sports Park, intended base for the institute, of which CHB Mayor Peter Butler was told the details this week.

"It's something I will give a lot of support to, but it won't (at this stage) be monetary," he said, although upgrading of the town's Russell Park, already under way, effectively dovetails on the basis that developing the talent locally has its shortcoming if there are no facilities to put it into practice.

He said it was "fantastic" that Hawke's Bay had someone like Sir Graeme Avery to drive such a project, and said: "It takes out of the hands of the politicians, so so it doesn't become a Hastings and Napier, or CHB-Wairoa thing."